


could.

by orphan_account



Category: Hunger Games Trilogy - Suzanne Collins
Genre: F/M, I FOUND THIS OLD SHIT ON MY COMPUTER AND I WAS LIKE ASDGHGFDS, clato aka the ship i wld have died for when i was thirteen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-04
Updated: 2018-10-04
Packaged: 2019-07-25 05:47:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,103
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16191323
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: To Cato, Clove was never a girl.She was a competitor.





	could.

**Author's Note:**

> yall idec if nobody reads this im so excited I love clato

To Cato, Clove had never been a girl. Not in the sense he viewed females. Biologically, she was a girl; her training profile said ‘female’ next to her name and height. But that didn’t mean anything. She wasn’t one of those girls who let her hair loose and wore tight clothes and would sleep with anyone who so much as called her pretty - she had eyes sharper than the knives in her sleeves.

Of course they tried. People would slide up to her and whisper in her ear sweet words, probably hoping for her to peel off her jacket and show them whether she was hiding something under there. Cato remembers when Angus James had followed her home one night and earned himself a broken hand. Nobody knew for sure that it was Clove, but nobody dared to ask.

To Cato, Clove wasn’t a girl. She was a competitor.

He can remember it vividly, the first time he ever saw her, fourteen years old and bloody from the nose after a heavy hit from Jackson’s fist. There’s no gender segregation in combat, but there was age segregation up until sixteen. But there Clove was, fourteen and fighting Jackson, who was eighteen and due to go volunteer for the games that year.

He had sauntered over and sat by her, not within arms reach.

“If you keep fighting like that,” he said, “you’ll get into the games easily.”

Instead of giggling under his charm like most girls would, she fixed him with a steely look and said, “That’s the plan, genius.”

Cato had blinked and realised far too late that he’d never heard her voice before. She had a deep voice; it wasn’t high and false and giggly. He wondered what she sounded like when she laughed - then he wondered if she had  _ ever _ laughed.

“You’re a bit young at the moment,” Cato said arrogantly, even though there was barely a few months between them. “Usually they choose the older ones to volunteer.”

“No,” Clove replied, “they choose the best.”

And then she’d turned her back on him and ignored him until he’d left.

So she wasn’t a girl. She wasn’t a lesbian, either - Cato checked. She never seemed to express and interest in anybody at all.

“Ugh. Her. She’s games obsessed,” said Valerie James, before leaning up to capture Cato’s mouth in a kiss, and the promise of her naked body is much more interesting than Clove.

His mind sprang back to her after Valerie left. Clove, who had freckles all over her arms and face, a slender waist, thick hips - she was pretty. Pretty enough that if she put on some makeup she could have looked exactly like every other girl in the District.

He outright asked her one day, because he doesn’t tiptoe around things. He does what he wants.

“Why don’t you act like everyone else?”

She had looked at him. Her eyes were brown and angry.

“You don’t wear makeup,” he clarified. “You wear big jackets all the time when you’re not wearing training uniform. You’re always on your own.”

Clove glared a little harder.

“You’ve not got many friends, you know? It’s sort of sad.” He was being an asshole on purpose. He wanted her to break, to come after him. “You could fit in so much better if you did.”

“Wow,” she said sarcastically. Her voice was acidic and Cato was surprised how much the honesty soothed him. No fake laughter or tears. Just her. “You’re more of an asshole every time we talk.”

“You’re good at knives,” Cato allowed. “You’re clever, you know? You could be pretty, too.”

“Get out of my way,” she said, and there was no argument in her tone.

“Clove.”

“Just because I don’t dress like a whore,” she said through gritted teeth, “means nothing. I’m getting into the games.”

“So am I.”

“No, you won’t. You’re all size. You can use a sword decently, but you think ‘decent’ will get you at the top?” Clove snapped. “No. It won’t.”

“And you’re all skill,” he replied venomously, her words striking something within him. He wanted to lash out, feel her cheek cave beneath his hand. “You couldn’t take me on hand to hand.”

“You’re too big to see me. I’d come up behind you and break your neck,” she hissed.

“I’d break you with one hit.” His laugh was like cold water. “You’re barely up to my shoulder.”

There was an enticing moment where Cato thought she was about to lunge for him, but instead, Clove let the fire in her eyes burn holes in his face. She pulled her bag on her back and left the training centre without even glancing behind her.

Cato frowned at the spot she had just been, wondering why he wanted to see her come undone quite so.

A year passes. Cato gets better. Valerie James comes to the training academy and watches him work out. She fits into her training uniform beautifully, but she’s useless at hand to hand combat and can barely pick up a sword.

Clove gets uglier. She cuts her silky hair off brutally short so she doesn’t have to tie it back. She loses the curves and replaces them with muscle. Her freckles are still there, but there’s such a dark shadow over her face constantly that they’re practically invisible.

They both get nominated to volunteer for the games next year.

“Remember when you told me I’d never get into the games?” he tells Clove arrogantly, twirling a knife between his fingers.

“Remember when you told me I could be pretty if I tried?”

He looks at her short hair and angry eyes and scoffs. “I take it back.”

This gets her to smile. It’s an ugly smile, full of anger and satisfaction.

“I’m going to kill you next year,” she says casually.

He laughs -  a short ‘hah!’ with no humour in it at all. “We’ll be allies. Us and District One. I’ll be leading us.”

“I’m sure you will be,” she agrees, “but the second the rest are dead, don’t count on me.”

“Oh, I would never,” he mocks.

She leaves him with a grin which promises pain.

He thinks about her all that night, what she would look like if she still had the skinny waist of a fourteen year old and the hair which fell into waves at her shoulders. He thinks about what would happen if he’d taken a leap and kissed  _ her _ on the mouth when she was younger instead of Valerie James.

She’s intriguing, to say the least. Shame that he'll have to kill her.

 


End file.
